Thursday, 29 July 2010

The Persian emperor who had once been defeated in battle by Athens now required an attendant to accompany him at all times, to help him combat fatigue and discouragement and restore his taste for battle by murmuring night and day, "Lord, remember the Athenians." The mere words were enough to awaken the old feeling. This custom of the emperor persisted long after his reasons for going to war with the Athenians had faded from his mind. But his distaste for conflict remained a secret known only to his loyal attendant, who was forever whispering into his ear the prescribed urgings. The emperor seldom slept, the attendant even more rarely. A new campaign began but the emperor barely noticed, for him things continued as they had been. Even when the fever of battle was sweeping over everyone around him, he felt himself strangely detached, as if standing, fully dressed in his battle armour, his bright war pennants unfurled brilliantly before him, well apart.Then one night when a ground fog had crept over the camp, the tents were enveloped in silence, and the distant fires of the Athenians could hardly be made out through the mists that cloaked everything -- or, perhaps, it may have been on a night at sea in the Straits that this happened, and it was the distant lights of the enemy ships that were dimmed -- a peaceful moment befell the contending armies -- or fleets. And the emperor's attendant drifted off to sleep. It was as if something within the world had shifted, in that moment. There then prevailed a period of peace between the Persians and the Athenians.

US Navy sailors in motor launch rescue a survivor alongside the sunken battleship USS West Virginia during the Japanese raid at Pearl Harbor, 7 December, 1941: photo by US NavyTorpedo exploding on USS Wast Virginia at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941, seen from attacking Japanese plane: photo by Japanese Navy Ministry

(Here bloggers are supposed to make fun punctuation thingies, I think, to show the tone is meant to be humouresque. I've never learned those.)

From the first minute the pointing of the fingers created a crossfire of guilt and blame transferred and misplaced and directed and redirected that seemed to demand a neural rewiring on the massive scale in order to take it all in.

I love your photo-bracketed dream fable. I wish things like this really happened. Seeing the Pearl Harbor photos (both of them new ones to me, but like most people of "my generation", I certainly grew up on photos like this, filmed documentaries, WWII movies and the anecdotes of people who lived through the war) makes me wonder what thoughts occurred to the original photographers of war. My almost 13-year old daughter knows nothing about any of this. Apart from what her mother and I have tried to teach her, all of these historical references have been completely excluded from her education (which is nonetheless heavily and rigidly politically focused) and the entertainment she is presented. Some lawyers do have a lot to answer for, but it's a complicated subject and not one-dimensional.

I understand the current Persian emperor, from a different hemisphere, has close advisers, too.

This probably has even less to do with your topic than the BP spill but I always find Krishna's advice to Arjuna to be so absolutely terrifying in the Bhagavad-gita. These pictures, their portent and resonance, recall that fear, as one looks out over the battlefield of one's brothers and cousins and friends.

That lawyer joke was too lame for words, I don't know why I wasted any on it. Anonymous's sweeping generalization provoked a flippant banana peel of a response.

The whole issue of historical accountability, guilt, responsibility, blame is obviously so tangled. I'd been reading Rebecca West on the Nuremberg Trials. It reminded me that actual human beings, often petty and venal ones, originate much of what we think of as history, and from their acts, it seems, whole grand trains of evil can follow as if by some inevitable (and insane) momentum.

The fact that Jane is not taught this history in school is very, very sad. The old saw about history repeating itself...

Sometimes it seems there is no cultural memory any more.

Don,

"...portent and resonance, recall that fear, as one looks out over the battlefield of one's brothers and cousins and friends..."

That describes the meditations out of which this post grew. I've been revisiting that period leading up to and just after Pearl Harbor in memory and imagination.

Hi. I didn't take the lawyer comments too seriously. From my point of view, in terms of societal esteem, it's been all downhill for the profession since Watergate when we were treated to the sight of all those lawyers going to jail. And since then, we've had two presidents become disbarred lawyers, which is more than dispiriting. At least one was Republican and the other was Democrat, so some sort of universal balance was maintained. The way Jane has been taught history and literature up to this point is entirely agenda-driven and extremely troubling to me. At some point, however, I expect she'll be able to break free and have an opportunity to resurvey the landscape and make up her own mind.

we all know what Shakespearesaid about the lawyers...but thecommon man needs the law.

as for the emperor's attendantit might very well be the electorate for Pres.Obama, who Ibelieve would really not like tobe in Afghanistan.

As for the Japs in WWII who areour Japanese friends now,culturalrelativism and historical political correctness ought to considerbesides Pearl Harbor...the Rape ofNan King...the Battan Death Marchall of which occurred before Hiroshima

I bring this up because unlikethe Emperor of the United Statesthe electorate has enough senseto realize that there are thosewho wish a nuclear attack on Infidels just because we are andand the thousand year old Buddhiststatues the Taliban destroyed because they were are a stones throw from Pakistan's nuclear arsenal...

"History" said James Joyce "is anightmare from which I am tryingto awake" History can be painfulif it is not taught,which it is not,eventually there will be morenightmares in the present.

The forum of this blog takes placein part in TC's historical memory.TC in addition to being a poet isalso an historian....see The Worldof Damon Runyon, The Exile of Celine, the bio of Charles Olson,Allegory of a Poet, etc.

The Irish among others who knowtheir history know that historyis nightmare from which we aretrying to awake...by the waydid the Brits ever apologize forthe Potato Famine?